Hi all,
The pic below is how I plan to wire my N scale layout for DCC. I’ve never really wired a layout (properly) so I’m wondering if I have placed feeders in the correct spots. The black turnouts are Peco Electrofrog, so everything off the toe end of these turnouts will need to be powered. Most track joints will be soldered, except for the turnouts. If you see anything that will be a problem, please let me know. Thanks in advance.
(click image to enlarge)
I’d probably put feeders on the other side of the turnouts in the upper left.
Personally, I’m planning to power every piece of flex and not solder joints unless I have to for another reason.
I like to have every piece of track soldered to something, either and adjacent piece of track or a track feeder. Since you are not planning to solder the turnouts (good move) then there are several areas in your plan that would have no solder connection to anything. A quick looks suggests the following places might be good additional feeder locations.
Some might think it overkill, but I don’t think it is much extra work to add some extra insurance. On my layout, I put feeders on all the rails of each turnout as well. For what it is worth every single piece of rail on my layout has a connection to the power bus that does not rely on a press fit connection.
[#ditto] about having every piece of rail soldered, either to another piece or a feeder.
Yes, it’s overkill. Until a problem develops, and you have to add a feeder after ballast, scenery, etc. Sometimes access is quite difficult in such cases.
I’m in HO, and routinely solder two pieces of 3-foot flex together on my workbench, then install as one long piece of flex, with one feeder.
The only exception is, I try to solder all joints on any curves except the most gentle, and anything with an access problem.
Thanks for the replies everyone.
I have added a few more feeders to the yard. Maybe this is just inexperience talking, but I find it hard to believe that feeders will be needed for EVERY unsoldered rail. Can joiners be relied on at all? The reason I placed the feeders where I did was to keep things organized under the layout. If I do place feeders on every rail I’m worried that the underside of my layout will look very messy.
Hi. Joiners will work well for an indefinite period of time if you don’t compromise them during installation or subsequently…such as with acids, paints, and with glues. Also weakening them over time is allowing the joint to rise and depress with the passages of rolling items overhead. If the roadbed is nicely flattened, or planar, and if you adhere the ties well to the roadbed, then you should have very few problems. So, the places where you will have most problems is where you have turnouts. Most of us do not fasten them except with a lick and a promise so that we can remove them outright when we have to…which is more often than any other item on the layout.
Also, to get back to the feeders, I think you will need more just below that yard throat at upper right. There will be a few rails that should be gapped between turnouts that will need power.
I use copper tape tape running along every other joist on the L girder benchwork. These run directly across and under all tracks. I then solder the droppers to this tape which then form a sub bus. The ends of these pair of tapes then are soldered to the main bus, 2 jumper wires again ,copper tape is used for the main bus but this time about an inch wide and goes right around the layout. This way, all droppers are prety short and run only verticly from the rails to the sub bus tape. This results in a very tidy result.
I also solder flex in 2 lenghts and install on the layout with their own droppers. Every switch (peco electro’) has its own feed from the back of the switch rails and closure rails, peco provides a very handy cut out for you to solder on droppers in this area.
Thats how ive done it anyway!
CAXFan, you may well be right, I certainly am not the most experienced. All I know is that I have never had conductivity problems that were not attributable to anything but dirty track or wheels. This may well have been the case with fewer feeders than I put in, but there is no way of knowing. On my small sectional layout that I built before I started on this layout I had no end of rail joiner conduction issues, so I am perfectly willing to believe that in time a rail joiner may develop less than perfect conductivity. We each have to decide what we are comfortable with.